How does coach DaveRose keep his team grounded during the best and the worst of times?

“I hope it comes (down to) the fact that this is a marathon,” he said. “We all understand that we have 31 games in the regular season, a conference postseason tournament, and then a postseason tournament. The experience that some of the guys who have been through this rubs off on the younger guys. We say this all the time, that this game is very important and we want to give it our best effort in preparation, but it’s not going to make or break our season. But we want to play like it does, then deal with the results and move on from there.”

AUSTIN’SOK: BYU junior forward NateAustin, who injured his ankle during Tuesday’s practice, started for the Cougars Thursday.

Austin seemed unaffected by his ankle. He finished with seven points and 14 rebounds.